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Monthly Archives: July 2015

I am certain you are all wondering why I’ve called you here. Please, have a seat. This will not take too much of my undoubtedly valuable time.

There are many, many reasons why I feel I would be best to rule the world. You all have messed the place up pretty badly in my absence. The divisiveness you all create with your petty squabbles over borders, religion, and resources is mostly to blame here. We can sprinkle in a little bit of instilling fear in your populations, which seems to have started to better stratify your resource hierarchy within a given society, and irresponsible treatment of the world around you.

Now, I understand that a lot of this is not new. We’ve been doing it to lesser or greater extents since our race began; trust me, I checked. We’ve done better in some things, and are proper f**king it off in many others. But none of this really covers the main reason I should be ruling over the human race with a velvet-clad iron fist. You see, I am not certain that this is not all, to some extent, my fault, and I would like a chance to fix it.

For some time now, I have been wondering if perhaps, just perhaps, other people are not some time travel drug-induced nightmare. If perhaps I am not at all in control of a small nation of minions, a moon laser project, an army of cloned lab assistants, and three Philosophers, but in fact all things. That maybe, just maybe, I create not only the podcast and this document you see before you, but all things in the observable universe.

What would that mean for me? It would mean that not only is the suffering everyone experiences in their day to day lives entirely of my doing, but any experiences you could be said to have at all are also of my doing. It would mean that I control every last one of you by sheer force of my unparallelled mind. And I must admit, I rather like this idea. My lonely, solipsistic existence would be unfortunate for people that believe they have a view of the world that is their own. But it would be great for demonstrating the simple fact that I am the greatest Super-Villain of all time.

Often times the term solipsism is used to denote narcissism or a disregard for the thoughts, feelings, opinions, or general well-being of others. Other times, it is used to indicate the belief that one is the only person in the world that actually exists. And to some extent, neither of those are wrong, per se. Indeed, I often use it in latter fashion. Many of you will be bothered by this, thinking that it means only that we cannot be certain of things outside of our own minds. You may be thinking that perhaps Professor Metal is somehow mistaken. What you should really be bothered by is why I made you think this, and whether or not I am in, in fact, setting you up to be deemed a thought-criminal. Indeed, there may very well be Thought-Police outside your home or place of work even now. That could be one of them right over there (spoiler alert: it is).

With our preamble out of the way, on to the amble. There are problems inherent in the idea that only I exist. For example, where did this… damn it, what are these things… COMPUTER. That’s right, where did this “computer” I am writing this on come from? Do I even have a small nation of minions, a moon laser project, an army of cloned lab assistants, and three Philosophers? And most importantly, why would I be writing this if I am only writing it to myself, or recording a podcast only I can hear?

Those, loyal subjects, are not all that difficult to explain. Being Lord and Master of all that does, has, or will exist is hard work, even for an intellect as vast as mine own. Controlling everything you think, say, or do is rather stressful. And so I turn to these projects not because I think that they will help convert the already controlled masses, but out of a sort of desire for catharsis. It is helpful to me to get these ideas, opinions, and feelings out there so that I can better focus on more important projects. Having these things out there is a way for my mind to take the burden of controlling you individually and instead have a sort of subroutine that passively… well… pacifies you all. It allows me to teach you all how to think about the world around you without having to either go around and personally teach you or to simply dominate your minds. I have, perhaps, made the mistake of having too many of you to focus on all at once.

Do not think that I do this out of some sense of selfishness. If I could, I would grant at least a small percentage of you an independent first person perspective, one not ruled over by my mighty will. It is my sincere hope that by teaching you all how to think, at least the best amongst you will awaken to a consciousness not directly ruled over by the Benevolent Professor Metal. It would take a great deal of a burden off of my time and resources.

As it happens, I am willing to make you a deal: become an independent person, one not ruled by my awesome mental power and capable of independent, rational thought, and I am willing to give you whatever your heart desires. Do you desire wealth or riches? Just say the word. Do you want a place of power in my vast empire? I would be delighted to allow you to take up some small piece of the burden that is the cosmos. How about a puppy and some ice cream? That has been by far the most common request, and I never grow weary of granting it.

I make this offer not out of some softness for those of you capable of rational thoughts about the world around you, but because you are the greatest thought-criminals of them all. I have judged you and found you wanting. I hereby condemn you to be Free.

So Mike All right welcome one and all to Professor puddles I’m great bait and calamitous commentary with the philosophical change again. Today’s episode identity and the other are the alien he is truly alien. I have your host Professor battle. I’m Sean and I’m Bruce. I’m river. There’s going to be an awful lot of Steve’s running around the land. I like the original ones most of which one is original. The weird one won’t the normal one then what are the normal ones. So here I don’t know any of the others who say that we kind of mean the other in the almost ex a central turtle the non-self the one is different. Basically usually this refers to at least in classic existentialism anything that isn’t the self. I would be myself or someone else’s self Look John’s here but more frequently it’s referring to other people. Basically an extension of them is driven by starts working particular. There is this concept of the internal state the seeing thing the perceiver the functionary that is the self that is the subject and object goes on to perceive interact with in some way an object. And essentially otherness in at least Sarge work is the quality of something that is like me but is not me and is treated as an object probably subject on its own right as the most basic level once you define yourself. You also sort of an union way by doing so define everything that is not you that other which you know if you grant some kind of solicits and creates an interesting point when you see other people who are the other but they are also in certain ways like you you would create a weird overlap between not you like you. Well that was a big part of it. I feel such work and some of his contemporaries is reconciling the other and realizing the selfishness of those around you and recognizing that they are themselves this way. So a lot of starch worked out with a more personal point of view but a lot of his contemporaries did this up to talk about other ideas are talked about relationships with women in a lot of cases while I’ve definitely focused on was it a lot but she’d felt any group that was marginalized would be considered another from a societal standpoint not a not a certainly personal standpoint although that does factor into it. That’s something that we see the talents of that in society today in popular use of words like the word objectification comes from that amongst a variety of other things. This is one of the disciplines that expose probably most recently spun off of a loss a fee as a pure abstract and started to collect data on Judy. Ultra postmodernism. There’s also more or less abstract and work around it that it gets into that I think we can touch on the world certainly. This explored a lot this theme in science fiction and horror of a really good recent example what we destruct now and where we see a movie that is ostensibly about the problems with apartheid which the movie was filmed in South Africa and that was a very big problem for them for a very long time and you see a lot of the humans in the loop when District nine was about the apartheid. Yes Oh that certainly makes more sense. It was not actually a documentary we were man I was and that can happen but we see humans treating the aliens that have arrived in Johannesburg as the other they separate the lives not human which biologically they aren’t but they are they’re still shown as being beings of self that think and reason and feel and it definitely sort of leaders some of the historical background of South Africa and that region and you see that in the way the United Nations we’re going they’ll be person of occasion or depersonalization the way that they do that early on. It’s very much the stereotype of the just like today regarding that sort of thing. Interesting that we’ve seen people do one another sort we’ll time. Well when we were presented with a particularly now turning around and that’s alienation right. To make something not a part of to make it not recognizable to separating off all equally a nation is in a lot of the answers without the direction of intention. What we’re talking about these creatures are not like us and they’re treated as worse than us. In this particular way. What was interesting about District nine is that on the D.V.D. version of it there are several subtle signs that one can use in which you can view the movie with the Indian language on or off as a subtitle viewing it with language subtitles turned off. Actually yields a very interesting result of having a sense of these creatures as difficult to understand at the very least if not lesser than the humans which we do understand and which I think drives a very interesting spike into the social commentary and I think that was an intentional move by the producers of the film with other great example what we see is a lot of horror films and just horror of literature Frankenstein’s monster. For more classic representation not necessarily the movies but they were to book the lobster learns and grows and gains intelligence and is shown to be very intelligent talking but will still treat it like a monster. Superhuman thus telling so much that you Lester better than us which is why Willie unable to blend into society is completely whereas others you know that is a huge steaming. Well it certainly seems there are some better qualities that we do and as a matter of fact if I’m remembering Frankenstein one of the monster actually sort of judging us for them at one point is actually reviewing humans as you know. Why do you think you’re so great you seem to have a lot of problems you get over your petty jealousies you have visual stereotyping that goes on where you’re just someone that’s not beautiful you treat a lot of very interesting commentary. Only problem with Frankenstein monster is that he is other that is worse or better but that he is older. In From his point of view he has few ethical problems with killing people because he’s on the other side of some sort of divide on sequels and we have no problems with trying to kill him. And I think this is this is a huge thing because whenever any group of people that try to kill another particular genocidal situations it always starts with humans ation personalisation trying to get the culture to see those people that were about to do away with as other things to be a precursor to any major ethical crime to post back a little of that to District nine actually. I think there’s a really interesting parallel to that which is at times to me they also clues to flash came on the Web site and the flash came could be played from either point of view of the humans or the equations. If you played from the perspective of the humans you were trying to clean up and capture or shoot as many means you could to get them out of the way. If you played it from the aliens perspective though it suddenly became almost like a survival horror. It was a very stealthy very easy stay out of the way try and DOJ to incoming fire kind of thing and it gave you this real sense of the oppression that was supposed to be felt in this. And that I think relates back to this idea that the producers of the movie wanted to give you a game that is a format we’re very familiar with. Here’s a thing running quickly past you you need to shoot it right and then to ask you to play the same game from the perspective of the prey is to ask you to take the position of the other to to truly try and reconcile those two ideas together. And I think that that’s very interesting in relation to what you’re talking about genocide and the need to make the people who are to be put upon the other. Is this idea that it is a purely mental. There’s are we. Good and you know you mentioned the mode of having the survival horror feel to it. The humans are the other in their case or in particular like really really draws on other news. I mean I’m talking about really good or not just go or something so other and so alien that you can’t comprehend it or predict Usually that’s what the monsters are in these things. And another thing the district named not only gives you that otherness through how weird you know you look and sound options and things like that were there with sound it also goes Kafka. The guy starts turning into water which is you cross the line you become a mother the otherness is internalized which is brings it home as much as any horror can. Well and to talk about her and its relation to the terror of what lies beyond those we can talk about graph theory. You know me from. Lovecraft great strength was in stirring up the notion of that which was so alien you couldn’t understand you couldn’t comprehend and then to never bother trying to put it back into comprehensible terms but to just let us leave that which was terrifying for ourselves because we all have within a year of the thing that is so different from us that we can’t comprehend even to say that the monsters in your story are evil is to say that they have a coherent opinion about us which is fairly limited and well that’s kind of interesting. The moral question involving things what are otherworldly especially when religion older gods or when we see any certain science fiction much much older alien races that their kind of view does evolve with it from it’s very much a what is good and evil to use. If you’re powerful being you do you feel like you are morally reprehensible for slaughtering cattle or for destroying ants. What makes you any better than them. Or why would we feel for you if you do not feel for them. It’s strange to be in this position but I don’t feel like it’s a vision of waiting for me to talk about each other associated with that nature’s power structure of the moral state was to say that evil comes from defining an opposition E.C.V. only God is evil because the only God does is to go about its business doing its thing in the way it wants to get the power to do that in the world. The weaker member of our dichotomy in this case to human race season as evil because it is that which it puts upon us which prevents us from doing so and so evil is defined not by something in the world by opposition to something this is how we always define evil. Does it like us. That’s pretty much always if I was something good or evil in the lunchroom or is it what does I think a good question to ask when you’re asking the good we considered evil. Is it like us and I feel that table of law talks about this a lot is specially in relation to you at least from what I got. Relation to power structures in society. Because they’ve all felt that women and other marginal unscriptural looked down upon because they did not hold the power in the society that they were in and therefore more marginalized or more other right and left effectively the ruling class the norm as it were any power minority stance against the normative assumption the group that considered the norm wrote it well and actually meet. It alludes to a very similar kinds of point of asking morality master morality is based on whatever got you to be a master in the first place. That which you did or those like you had in the past to gain power is what becomes good and thus the virtues of the master. And so in some sense the same applies to you. So if you’re talking about war that that which brought us to a point of being in someone else’s power is bad. Those things which they do to continue to have power over us are evil but that which we do that does not promote our power. He comes back. I don’t really think that’s an interesting interesting versal of it certainly there are plenty of folks that would disagree with you but I do think it’s certainly an accurate reading of nature I think it’s fairly true to say that those who have gained power have a lot of influence on our definitions of right and wrong. Well I think about that the housing market crash and it was just commonplace for a corporation to for example default on a mortgage but the individual consumers could buy mortgages that were underwater everyone said no you’ve got to pay your debts you’ve got to stick with that. Whereas if you’re a corporation in this number one the folding. Well maybe I’m not coming across clearly enough about what I’m trying to do which is that it’s not those things that we did to give us power are good because they give us power in the past. They’re good because power is the definition of good good is that which ran to power bad is that which takes away for the Masters that system is fairly simple for the slaves. It’s a reversal because it finds first from the bad. It defines those things which the Master sees as good as being evil and then they find their offices as being good. So like if it’s good in the master morality to be rude. Was he going to do you power in the past to not take prisoners during combat. Right and that’s a good for the Master but bad for the Master is ventilation weakness by letting people live afterwards. The evils of a coin for the slaves being ruthless. If that’s what’s good for the masterwork then our good for the slave is the opposite of it. So giving the giving or I would like you just like to have at this point that nature was very much against this thinking and morality he believed in going beyond it and to create one’s own moral system and to try to enforce it and that factors a lot into the whole concept of the agreements and things of that like is beyond X. is good because we like to do it or X. or Y. is bad because they like to do it you know it was it was very much a must rise above as it were and that’s when you hear me choose critical systems morality. He just thought that the master morality was a little more honest than the slave morality was still not appropriate. It should be moving beyond moral systems. But that’s a track giving a little bit back on point. If we’re going to talk about popular media in this context I think we should definitely point out the antithesis the sort of counterexample that we see a lot especially in more modern horror as opposed to more classic gothic horror which is bizarre. The film specifically remember Rose saw the films where you have the monsters and they’re mindless as far as anyone can tell and they’re out for you and it’s very obvious that it’s you versus them and they’re almost everybody versus the world and him. Certainly it’s kind of interesting that there is no potential for reconciliation there there’s just completely give up and give yourself over to the zombies. There’s no getting over it. You survive right. Yeah exactly and I feel that’s kind of an interesting direction words on it’s nothing else considering especially a lot of the way society’s been building itself lately with the beaver mentality is special in certain sectors. Over and there was ninety nine point nine percent of the population it really just those nation that everybody feels from everything. Well what about the hundred meters and such a good frightening counterpart looks like us and you know a lot of ways like us you’re not and you know that seems to be missing some crucial thing that makes us us. And so in a very real and tangible way because on the other and we are presented with our own fear of doubt which is why yes but not us. I haven’t yet seen my sister come into existence at any minute. For example in Memo where you’ve got clans or zombies when they try to do you know some of the tricks like orcs who are on the other two but you know there are people role play works as groups and in it in a fire with some of these are just take a person and track everything about them that would make you the person interesting I read an article a while back that dealt with the who would like bees or vampires more the article itself was talking about the more progressive folks would drive more fear from Ban her movies and more conservative folks will derive more fear from zombie movies because of all the movie it’s the masses the everybody’s out to get you get your stuff and pull your do what it’s supposed to vampire movies or stories where you. These very select few who are very aristocratic and and charming and well off oftentimes because they’ve been around for hundreds of years and I think that’s the tool that to our society that seems very bright frighteningly accurate. Well a small super powerful elite an entire group of the masses are all useless because those together and you don’t rant. Let me just go ahead and throw out here being around for hundreds of years does not necessarily make one very well. So love that brings up some other interesting stuff. So many movies are very popular right now and there have been very few themed T.V. shows movies popular culture items. We are we are asked to identify with just one of them I can think of roughed up my head is shown of the town and its comical Association. So we’re expected to understand them as other. But at the same time to sort of feel for them as a thing in the world that is not bad but almost certainly especially considering the end of the movie in the sort of the way society deals with zombies after the outbreak and everything’s kind of happened. Society definitely bring back homes as it were and I think the interesting thing about some of the dead and one of the funniest bits in this is the question of how far could you get through the day in a zombie apocalypse before you noticed you were in a zombie apocalypse speaks to how far we’ve already other and become alienated from everything that we might not notice for hours that the people shuffling around in there for your vision to us we went through our day we’re zombies or monsters. From whatever perspective they were almost there already. Sure I am referring to people that I have packed on to the train with or that down next to me at the bus stop but I don’t want to interact with. I mean I may not be this are really afraid in the run for your life can’t wait but there’s certainly an easy looking over my shoulder. Don’t get too close I don’t want to touch you or talk to you. Sense of not wanting to engage that we’re just we’re just in the peripheral vision so we double up into them and that’s what we go through work. So that reason or other that was to get us one step closer to something that’s happened more recently which is as protagonist absolutely Warm Bodies is the first real example I can come up with in modern popular media where trolls around things are as they tired of being caught and sapience again they become aware slowly but surely. So there’s a movie and I’m going to have in the show notes we humans just call Azam bees or something like that. Basically the reverse of the zombie story design these are the people we’re following and they have the opposite experience of all the rest of the people they perceive that and want to suddenly start moving very quickly. They’re very noisy and running around and they’re trying to do things like get two motor engaged to get help. But more recently than that there has just become a new show called Eyes on the end which is on the is actually only fleshed out character who goes around solving crimes and eating breakfast. So the question that this brings up for me anyway is to what extent does personally popular culture of the Zombie and the other to us have the donkey meaning in terms of how we perceive the culture around us I think it is. Might work or narration with Frankenstein in that we’ve got a primary character who you’re given their point of view them and the rest of the world you know it’s outnumbered us versus them but emerging from the classic zombie thing you know what it’s like to be a few downs weirdo normative in a world that’s all but not cool sexy like ours. Another thing I think is worth pointing out that has a lot to do with us as I Am Legend or Omega Man or last minute or earth or the book I Am Legend all of which are ostensibly the same story until a couple of different ways. Where are we find out spoilers by the way that the protagonist of the Dr that’s trying to find rather trying to survive in this post hoc world where these creatures come out at night attack him he’s the bad guy ostensibly but the other in the story actually is the protagonist and that kind of leaves it at that I didn’t realize he was the monster. Exactly he is there a monster they they have they seem to have intelligence and are reasoning beings and he has become the boogeyman over the course of the movie and any of the backstory we see because he is hunting them and holds up at night which is different for them. He’s only of during the day because they’re out at night and all that and it’s very much a sort of I don’t want to say bait and switch but a great reversal of that sort of concept. Who’s the them. I think a lot of these stars I’m talking about is to subvert or break down the us versus them divide and I think that being of other NG I think it’s been a natural religion. I know evolutionary psychology really is very pseudoscience in doesn’t really go beyond conjecture but it seems like we normally do this and we should try to learn to get beyond it. So you know we’ve got one who seems to be the US is actually that them or who seems to be to them is actually the US ones that is District nine where the main character transforms he crosses the boundary from one to the other but to point out those boundaries break them down flip them show that they are ultimately arbitrary I think seems to be the goal of these and I think that is a valuable lesson to learn. It helps us to connect with each other as we tear through the tissue paper of those walls. Well certainly it’s in our nature to define things in some way or other and if you are in a small group situation like travelling nomadic tribes or something like it makes more sense to be able to identify those people who might need a new arm because they are not part of your immediate room that you need to be aware and that makes a certain kind of sense but I think it is part of the modern condition to be shackled with these urges these concepts that we have from them having to subtly long ago in our history and to try and overcome them in the time that we lived and in the way you’re different what is coming for us and I think in a lot of ways that’s why this is such popular themes are because if I look for you know asks questions about what we can become and this seems like something that we have put a lot of energy into thinking about in that way it does mean maybe it’s something that we should be prevalently aware of something we should be spending our time and energy trying to overcome because we are losing so much of our experience. Two this ingrained sense that no longer serves a purpose. Absolutely and I mean a lot of the modern examples of this in society at least that I’ve seen is the us versus them. They disagree with what I have to say therefore they are bad mentality that a lot of people seem to come up with and it holds people part it pulls two groups apart or multiple groups apart and anybody who tries to cross that divide is often shunned from either because if you were doing that you were obviously trying to make peace with the enemy somebody we don’t want to make peace with something that we we don’t want to meet halfway. It’s everything or nothing and anything else just won’t do. And that unfortunately is really occurring a lot in society and in politics and all around in a lot of discussions online groups you start to think that the problem is that both cancer fighting each other this group was a sacrament versus women X. boxes yesterday whatever it may be where anything from either side to actually attack the barrier between them is usually seen by the other as an attack on them and sort of reinforces it. So you have some people in the middle actually get along quite well on those divides but there are people on the outside saying it’s versus them as opposed to it’s all of us versus the thing that’s keeping as a part well into large if you see a parent just trust that I am also calming L.Z. you’re either with us or against us. You’re either one of us or you’re one of them. Your definitely not some third alternative because the world is divided into people who think along lines are getting way to long ones that we find ourselves. And everyone else. If you’re not in category a vineyard and have a great latte as opposed to being angry or C. or D. K. and from now there’s a perspective and the nuance of the many voices that surround us and the notion of you’re either with us or against us is easily logical undercut by saying what I’m against is a definition of us set up. Now the definition that your statement relies on falls apart so that’s kind of the false dichotomy it is you don’t attack the person or the group but I do you know the concept itself of the dichotomy. We’re always attacking ideas never people. I mean in this kind of a basic doing any kind of philosophy or any kind of critical analysis of anything. Very often you have to remind people that it’s not you I’m after is the idea the bad idea strong or philosophical debate is the notion that we disagree without being disagreeable. And to me anyway what that phrase means is it’s my job to disagree with the idea to counter and challenge and fight back against the notions that are put forth by the people present. I’m not to be cruel or to take it as a personal way to attack someone because I don’t like their eyes and that’s to a large extent something that our modern political discourse has lost. Certainly you don’t see a lot of folks at least in the United States crossing the aisle as it were they tend to fit into one camp or the other and the people who do try to do that end up getting pushed out rather quickly as seen as being too moderate and I think that’s a problem in the larger political system personally. The incentive for politicians seems to be towards with more polarization that would give them more hours doing that. So there’s a systemic problem there I’m not sure how to address it I think as an entire other topic starter Psystar believes in ages. I little less serious than some of the examples I’ve been given before but it very much. Attacks and deconstructing others as being just plain silly. Absolutely I mean if you think about the time in which Dr Seuss wrote that it was during a lot of the civil rights movement. The entire point of it was y’all look affectively saying why are you fighting. There are very few things that separate all of us. Why let it bother you. And one thing I think would help us would help quite a bit. Think about is in all of the different ways we can divide each other or that we can divide ourselves into two groups and level one as being normative having the power majority and the other one being non-normative or the minority whether it’s race and international and religion some other beliefs that’s important to you. Gender orientation and business there are so many categories all of which have their own dividing lines that if you think about it there are very very very very few people who actually have cited every single one of them for somebody to be completely normal would be extremely weird if you ever really met a perfectly normal individual perfectly normal person would turn different. Yeah but some agree. We’re all striving for not just the in-group backroom dynamic range is something that is ingrained in us and we’re all looking to be inside the group. If the norm is determined by which to grow. Find it’s down we’re all striving towards. Which is interesting when you consider that we are marginalizing ourselves in ways that we may not even be fully aware of the word gain acceptance allegation from verbs. You aren’t even sure we agree. Given that we had to change drastically to be harder. Interesting that you bring up the whole striving for morality in trying to be alike thing there is and I’m going to go a bit left field with this one as an example. But there’s an end of a fairly recent poll that had a group that it was the liberal they define themselves as the normal in those that didn’t follow the herd as they called it the herd mentality were ostracized and were excluded and often attacked because they didn’t want to follow the group and I think that’s that’s very telling in a lot of Western culture and a lot of all cultures honestly there are a lot of people in every culture that’s like you’re not normal so therefore you must be bad and it’s just interesting the way that they actually made it a political entity of sorts in the show. I think there is I mean you can’t really back it up it seems but it does seem to me to be sort of a human nature E. type of thing. I also think that it’s something we think we can and should work or work out for me personally I tend to actually go back to start and the way I apply that is I am the norm in the degree to which anyone in the world differs from me and everyone does at least a little bit. They are normal. In fact one of the we don’t be in the same boat. There are two kinds of people in the world there are those who divide the world into that of people and the rest of us. So as long as we don’t believe there should be again. I think there’s a lot deeper than that I don’t think we can just say well if everybody viewed everyone as different everything would be OK. People would be a lot more distrusting they necessarily are right now I think we have to confront the fact that everybody and I may be saying the same thing and I’m just not getting it the way you’re saying it is we have to address that everybody is unique just like everyone else. Everybody is different in some way. We’re all precious beautiful snow flakes. But if you look at the whole snow bank it’s hard. Again it was Bruce Seidlitz river. I grant you the last word. So the whole thing about other NG and the us vs them mentality is kind of a hard subject to broach because there’s a possible chance that you might be attacked for doing so by either side even if you’re not talking about one group specifically it’s a very touchy subject I think for a lot of folks and can make it seem like you are in the wrong even if you’re not I personally feel that one of the ways we can get a good dialogue going is to bridge the gap to sit down and talk about things no matter what it is if you do support one team or another if you are on one side or another of an issue one of the things we can do as people as individuals is sit down and talk to one another be willing to extend the olive branch as it were and I think that is vitally important. More than ever in our society because we have been seeing this polarization because we have been seeing this. Oh I’m from I think your for your thing and I never shall between me and I think that’s a big problem I think I think it can be overcome by sitting down and just kind of recognizing that we’re all people that we’re all in this together as it were and that we kind of all are in a very similar to what we all know. We will die for our people and I think that’s a really good way to open up communication. I’ve personally traveled a lot and despite a lot of misgivings that seemed to come about when talking about folks from elsewhere in the world I found that most of the people I ran into were not very different than myself or the people I know maybe speak a different language maybe even look a little different but a lot of the people who wanted the same things wanted to kind of get along get through this existence as best as possible and I think that the us versus them mentality really obscures that I think it takes away that sort of understanding and that we need to overcome it. That’s what we need to get beyond it. We need for lack of a better term work together. If going forward if we’re going to do anything to build two if you want to leave something for the next generation for for us to not dissolve into chaos. We need to kind of reconcile the fact that we’re not so different and the same times very much are one thing that can be done to do this is talk to people more Talk to your neighbors talk to people you run into don’t try to go in with any sort of pretense. I think it’s easier for me to say that because I kind of fit in the quote unquote core demographic. I am in my mid twenty’s white guy I’m the group that gets pandered to the most. And it can be hard for some folks especially with as much bitterness that seems to be out there and misgivings about various people. I think this is vitally important that we all kind of put that behind us to try and communicate more. Well that’s all the time we have for today. Join us next time after we have the philosophers out make around Steve’s ninety three thirty three fifty seven back into the steep tax. Don’t forget to subscribe interview on itunes. Follow us on Twitter. So this your questions and if you like what we’re doing here. 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So Mike money here and it’s Welcome one and all to Professor metals irate debate and calamitous commentary with the philosophical chain gang. Today’s episode click bait native advertising and product placement. Learn this one weird trick philosophers don’t want you to know I’m your host Professor metal and river. I’m Sean and I’m Bruce. This episode brought to you by coin that’s currency much cryptic so spend. Wow All right so native advertising or product placement. How are we going to have to tackle such a complex topic. I think approaching the topics what a tie would probably work best everybody’s in each one separately and then kind of how they tie together because that is of very much a lot of overlap there. So I want to start with native advertising. Don’t get everything just OK So native advertising. What do we mean by that. They have advertising at least as I understand it is when you dress up an advertisement as something else usually in the media that they’re advertising with oftentimes is used on news sites or sometimes even in news papers to kind of bury the leaders or as to what’s being advertised making it. Like an actual article as opposed to try or do product it’s Check out this article sponsored by so and so it was advertising that in films and doesn’t make itself known as advertising it seems like it’s just the same content that you were passing over anyway. Yet the content you were expecting only influenced by the exchange of money. Basically the the promise of advertising so much of McDonald’s wanted to pay for review of their new Amberger inside of the magazine it would probably yeah it would probably look a lot like a review of our magazine but there is one of the problems with native advertising is conflict of interest and so is the for the writer for that gave it a favorable review which they probably would because they’re being paid to. They would they. There were definitely seemed to be some sort of conflict of interest in there and it’s more than that too though like a lot of times the company doing the advertising just writes what they want to go away and in the style of the magazine or site or whatever that they’re using. Certainly in the usually has a little tiny thing there at the bottom that says advertising and mostly the intent is to confuse people is clear which is interesting because just having that shouldn’t be sufficient to get the people doing the context of the book of saying oh we’re trying to win the week we write our stuff honestly then we let them put this out and that if the consumer can tell the difference between Which part of the advertising which party actual content then how are you not responsible for the fact that people are being fooled into thinking that you do. We’re factually indorsing these products. This is an area where there have been some changes happening to the way that it’s presented. When you talk about the small lettering claiming that something’s advertising we’re mostly talking about magazines and newspapers where that practice but in the online world actually started to be sort of a problem because there are no established ground rules for journalistic integrity of some sort on the laws of the way so a lot of times you won’t see any sort of markings saying this was an advertisement and one here is the thing that is a sound is an incredibly valuable place to put information like that. Cheers to be coming up organically is in the comment sections a lot of brands now paying people to go out and comment on websites that are associated with some where they would like their product to be more well known and post content. Suppose if you’re looking for people who lack critical thinking skills you know and would be easily manipulated. You couldn’t comment sections would be a good place to find them. Well one of the really going to samples I’ve heard somewhat recently is energy drink companies paying for marketers to go out and comment on pro anorexia Web sites people who are already looking for weight loss type things in a very disturbing way are being pushed towards us but not directly by the company that actually produces the product because that would of course be problematic for them. Instead they’re paying a third party to go out and advertise their product by posting about how much weight they lost drinking rock star for example in the comments section of these ones a little bit of a separate issue but I think we can momentary start to dress in the way that companies so frequently ship responsibility by having going to client relationships and creating really kind of a network of companies working on a project. But for the one whose name is on the title is separate more and more you see people trying to figuring out these companies for doing and shifting the blame to them. Like it sometimes rightfully shows as opposed to the advertisers although unfortunately there are some times where they’ll be like here will take this advertising company that we’ve heard a little bit about but don’t know what they do and it’s still the blame still kind of falls on the advertising company for using certain tactics. That’s kind of how they get away with it too is they can claim ignorance on the matter. One of those a layer of this association between the brand and tactics that were used solver and until you get enough trouble you can say we’ve fired that P.R. firm and we’re very sorry to any values but I know what we wanted from the campaign it was approved through an automatic system basically that we didn’t have a lot of direct control over and we will work hard in the future to do something else. The truth may be that they knew exactly what was going to happen. Half the controversy it stirred up was intentional because they wanted people to be paying attention to it. But by having someone else to slough off and get rid of as the blamed party then the brand gets to emerge most likely you know from particularly messy scans and one thing with the difference in the way that this is treated that are in their own notices. Trademark law for example intent to mislead is actually in the law you know if I open a chain of stores called Wally Mart in the logo looks just like Wal Marts you know it’s pretty obvious that I’m trying to care that I’m trying to get business from them people who don’t know the difference. And because we can tell what you’re doing with your intent was to mislead you know I’d be on the I would have crossed the line there it seemed like it would be perhaps a good thing to apply. To advertise their intent to mislead. As it stands I don’t think anybody claims to buy such regulation and so it seems to be kind of an evolutionary thing. Kind of reminds me. Species that develop chameleon tactics to avoid predators. Well the thing is is there are a lot of companies that have had their feet held to the fire before about this sort of thing about misleading folks but because native advertising is such a new thing and something that is only recently gotten publicity as an advertising tactic there hasn’t really been a call for accounting yet for these companies that have been employing it like there are more and more there is but for a very long time nobody was sort of held responsible at least not in the real serious way. Whereas in the past if you have companies making spurious claims they would definitely feel if they found out well and to some degree yes there is a certain standard of intent to mislead with in advertising and certainly also advertising is the thing that is illegal and there have been companies home to account for that. The question is really one of whether that applies only to the content of an advertisement like this pill will make your cancer go away or whether it applies to the ad itself. What you’re being misled about in the case of native advertising is not the content within the year but merely whether or not it is and so does the standard applied to the dramatic question in some sense of whether or not this is that it’s uprising. I don’t know an advertising ever ties and B. but I mean the things that they can do work for example. Maybe they just want people to be more interested in a certain subject which Ducktails with their product. Or or even through mission. I remember a while ago arose and started a tech news website that had everything covered except for the scandals that Rose and will just sort of kind of like increase the amount of discussion about everything else. This of course just created another scandal when it came out that they they were omitting any discussion of their themselves just generally in very subtle ways manipulating the conversation to talk about other things or to talk about things to genteel to your product. Not even so much just like trying to get the message about your product directly out well and that’s similar in some ways to the idea of whether or not doesn’t matter question is comfort. It’s a question of the signal to noise ratio right rhizomes attempting to boost noise to boxing. Essentially they wanted to raise the more you move everything else in the hopes that it would drown out the things they didn’t want you to hear and in the case of the name being intentional what they want is for them to raise more on everything around the advertisement. So you don’t pay attention to whether or not you simply continue to move through a string of various stories not paying attention to the differentiation between the two. So now seems like a good time to move on then to product placements. Absolutely. I’m fairly certain this is something a lot of people know about it’s kind of hard to miss although sometimes it’s a little trickier than you think. But we’ve definitely had in the past throughout televised media or movies we’ve had product placement early on it was a you know brands of cigarettes would sponsor primetime shows and it was a little more obvious. Back in the fifty’s and sixty’s where you know this episode brought to you by that sort of thing. Well early T.V. and. You know the the product or the company would actually buy the horse show. It’s the you know the the the Winston cigarettes Comedy Hour with so and so and they will use clear Winston cigarettes paying for the show for me to watch as entertainment and you know you should you should thank him because they’re making the show happen single handedly answer and made of the difference between a sponsorship and product placement in a sponsorship. We say this company is doing this in a product placement. We just want it somewhere and you know that you know the main character happens to be in a particular brand of healthy snack foods provided by the end of this go forward to feeling all the terrorists. Right. So product placements are a little more savvy is a little bit less obvious to the intended target. They are sort of snuck in around and they may fill up an entire show with various products was it maybe Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is followed by all of by land or do you need civilians or whatever else you know every element can be used in product placement. Oh certainly and we’ve I mean we’ve seen media that Liverpool’s most notably that I can think of at least the world where they fit all of their product placement for most of the movie in about a five minute stretch where the whole conversation is talking about them not wanting to sell out and it the screenwriters and the actors are making it very clear that this is a studio decision that all of these things have to be in there because there were people paying for it. The companies paying for it and they didn’t necessarily agree. So you have this five minute roll of just every obvious advertising product placement you could have just to make fun of it. I think another great example of. Including the notion of private placement was what thirty Rock get when they received money from Sprint and pretty much came out to have their little discussion about a Sprint phones don’t drop all call law and then they turn to Cameron’s until we have our money now which just absolutely destroyed any sense that this was supposed to be deterred or is really an improvement really believing this product instead it was clearly and now we’re going to ask for our money so that you know we were being paid for this I don’t think product placement itself is necessarily bad. I think that it’s OK to have companies put their products in I think was unsettling about it is the same notion that if we as consumers are not made aware of what’s going on when the product placements are rushing in or two to clobber that we don’t necessarily know that that’s what that was. Then we get into some dangerous territory because this is not so much specifically with product placement and instance but sort of the climate that’s created by the economy or product placement. If a company does not pay for their products to be there the general policy between most makers of shows is to to exclude their product. This kind of creates a problem your characters do drink soda we need to have as we need to have this thing where they pull up a search engine. We need to have a thing where they’re going to eat and potato chips. But we didn’t strike managed to strike a deal with any of these. So you start out coming up with artificial products because they can’t have any real ones because the real ones didn’t pay. So you’ve got less potato chips you’ve got web spider search engine which people in T.V. shows use even though why or where using Google or even just you know or something you know nobody’s heard of this you know these are using these weird made up products because of the requirements. These characters were supposedly live in the real world where we’re surrounded by real products and normally would be completely normal for a character to drink if they have to use Google or your readers and I would actually rather see more more products used more subtly rather than just when money is involved and only in overt ways in order to create personal to do with reality. Well I’m one of the other solutions used in the past is white and white and black label the just say soda or beer or something something that doesn’t take me out of the story unless you’re doing like Repo Man which has all the products are intentional I think it does at least allow us of a certain amount of critical space right. If I see when I’m spider on there I go I don’t want to be using Web site or I immediately think because Google didn’t pay them to put their thing in there gives me as an audience member an opportunity to know that when I do see them is going to give them some money. OK now I know this is a product placement and I think that’s actually verging on subs Well it takes me out of whatever story they’re trying to sell. I personally feel that with a lot of fictional media having things that are kind of left of center as it were for for products you have things that are quite obviously supposed to be the product placement but art because they don’t pony up the cash for being a reinforcement that this is not reality and that can be seen as a way to break suspension of disbelief I think that reaffirms it for me that this is its own world. It’s not supposed to be happening here it’s mostly happening somewhere else but that’s still interesting that puts us in an interesting position. We want to be critically analyze in the Product placement of the consumers. We also want to be immersed in not engaging a critical thing that I can see in order to enjoy the show. So there’s sort of a push and pull here. Should I be analyzing what I’m watching or should I just be immersed and and accept it. I see what you’re saying and I don’t necessarily disagree. I find that at least for me turning off my critical faculties and not part of me enjoying a show I don’t need to do so now and a lot of people do feel that way and I’m not criticizing that position. But for me I find it much more enjoyable to keep that active as part of my experience I should probably point out that we’re not being paid to mention any of the things we’re talking about although we really like to know if you want to send us a couple. What’s a good example of a product that’s like a real product is on Netflix recently released show the initial heavy error and furniture. Do you think a fine product called Marines that is very clearly supposed to be referenced to another very famous product but is not and they market a little bit in that and that’s just fine for me I don’t need to be using them to be using the official for Brees product. I know one of the reasons supposed to be so I think in that respect I root for that you can have a layer of unreality that sort of suggests but does not say it is something else. Another show that played with this concept the listing is community in one of their little in tech sections one of the characters was doing You Tube product review of let’s potato chips which sort of looks like Lay’s potato chips and you refuse the potato chips in this clearly saying let’s in the whole time you’re thinking OK this is one of those fake products they make for T.V. shows there are in fact companies that make that exist to make the packaging of fake product for T.V. shows. Let’s potato chips you’ll see an actual a lot of T.V. shows in the background. Specific cigarette brands you know the people who came up. What website or at least you know what the page looks like. Yeah there are companies that exist solely for the purpose of making fake products because real companies didn’t want to pay for the real products to be on T.V. shows. This is little bit down the rabbit hole. That’s fair and I do agree with Shawn here that critical faculties are not something you need to be necessarily turned off in the world sometimes rude my suspension of disbelief. But there’s a lot of media I’ve been consuming recently that is very continuity heavy and that you kind of want to be aware of because there’s a lot of little things that point to other things happening or that allow you to draw conclusions or conjecture that are great for worldbuilding which is something I’m very much a big fan of in narrative and I think that critical thinking is definitely a big part of the show I’m thinking of. Steven Universe doesn’t have the product placement made of advertising or anything else because it’s pretty much wholly owned by her to work and Turner Broadcasting and doesn’t need any of that which I feel is good because it’s ostensibly a children’s show and brings up the topic of kids and bastardize is probably one of the things that are with regard to how we as adults are influenced by product placement and advertising worldwide is in large part a function of one skill so we did all of that of course. Most children are not given the opportunity to have that skill set or they interact with these sorts of media and whereas you might be able to hold an adult or not and then develop the critical reasoning skills necessary to recognize these various kinds of media literacy. You can’t really fault for not having been given today. So just have a little or they know what the world saw farther. They’re learning and expanding their awareness of the world through the city they don’t know the breed is not a product. No that’s that’s an incredibly good point about children and product placement especially when you consider a lot of eighty’s and ninety’s her to use any of her tunes were in large part extended toy commercials you had G.I. Joe you had masters of the universe. My Little Pony Gemini holograms all of these and transfer all certainly transformers a lot of these were killed by and are still owned by Hasbro and various other large print companies and they were effectively there anything you saw on screen other than the set dressing and sometimes even that weren’t toys that were being sold and kind of continue into the ninety’s and still today to some extent although it’s tapered off a little bit where they’ll start having new gadget show up in like things that only use once that solve that particular problem of the week and then see it on four shelves and you know that that is very obviously as an adult a Task Rabbit as a kid you’re like oh my god that’s the you know the new thing that they used the jetpack are going to get out of the sports car or what have you and I’m not so much a bad thing is that because I’m thinking OK if I’m a child and I was consumer of this media and I want to get as much fun out of it I’m going to watch the show and then I’m going to grow my toys and only go in my room and I’m going to continue the show and play and getting more value I’m getting more fun. Whereas if you say well no we didn’t make those toys available because that would obviously be trying to get more money out of you. Well I want to continue I want to have my own adventures with this you know almost seems like a feature rather than a bug. Well Nic we’re going about I don’t think there’s a problem a certain way that a lot of T.V. shows created for children but it’s interesting true Mr Universe. Even franchise with first world that the show was created an afterthought to the toilet and created twenty one thing wanted to sell and they created a show to come along afterwards to explain the story of these two ways against you and we can move the product as a matter of fact He-Man was distributed at such an incredibly low rate. T.V. stations to play that it was considered to be a financial failure but once it was revealed this has always been marketing material for the toy line all of a sudden it all came into focus. So in those instances where we create something to draw the attention of children merely to sell a product. I think there’s a difference of words Phineas version of the same and I think that part of what has caused this phenomenon to be less prevalent now that everything is a toy or you have every T.V. show it’s every possible hurt him we come up with is going up to twenty one associated with it. Why create a toy line and then a show to go with it rather than focusing on creating a good show. You suddenly have too much noise in the marketplace to be able to do that. It’s been talked a little about this in one of those stand up comedy special is the idea of how they will sell to children a toy that is only professionally different from previous two and we’re already sort of he calls them magic he made a time make it who are and make it to which each have slightly different finger arrangements finger is elevated or more or less on different ones each one being a new ten dollars you have to spend a huge chunk. Luckily we have seen a bit of pushback on this in recent years a lot of issues relating to Liverpool that I guess the best example I can think of was from Batman the very visible wenches a great send up to so very fat man. Most other things in the very last episode of the series the creators. And writers and everybody knew that if it were done let’s let’s have a little fun with it and then in the last episode just completely Lampoon this tweet culture that they have come up with in the eighty’s and ninety’s and just completely threw shade that has Ferraro and the really big other toy companies and I felt that was kind of great because again it’s a show of sensibly for kids and you know young teenagers and everything and it’s very obviously pointing out the problems that exist with that sort of idea and concept. I think this is something that can be done a world of poorly obviously giving earlier the quality of the show itself and that she was all ended because it didn’t have to be good because it wasn’t trying to be good on its own merits. And then on the other hand the it like having a whole set of very very similar action figures is a crutch for use in the kids’ imagination. You know if there are that there are the similar isn’t clearly your imagination is being more limited than expanded and something that can be done well well or poorly. One of the best examples and then this you know it was News with Brian Williams action figures with the anchor desk set if you want to spring for the whole thing I mean that one there’s a million stories you could tell that because the news is different every day. Well I think the very slight differences in the things are supposed to be and specifically of the Power Rangers and how all of them at least in costume appeared almost identical except for the color of the suit and that actually is itself kind of telling of not just American culture but Japanese culture because they do that a lot a little less. The variants of the same thing but they still think Power Rangers and door which go by a different name. In Japan amongst many other shows that I have I talk to folks online about and they are yet still glorified drug commercials. Well sometimes I actually have some pretty good plots but they are just glorify everything you know they are not even really hiding it anymore. Of all corporations it was one of the least surprised to find out there are headquartered in a vault you know where it would be banned. Oh yeah they probably entered today or I think actually as it happens Bandai is headquartered out of volcano where I know I helped them or furniture. I was not the Republic of the Tookie home but OK let’s just wear their boxes. One last thing I do want to mention a product placement. Another place I see it rather heavily and one that really kind of irks me is video games we see racing games a lot of product placement billboards and other things. There’s a game I’ve been playing for years and years and they still rotate their advertisements for a bird of paradise. One of the first games that really included this feature for lack of a better term and they certainly don’t want to is worth I think out of it certainly has. But more and more we see this and sometimes for car companies sometimes for just random stuff I’ve seen Burger King billboards in racing games. I don’t have a problem with it because there’s generally a lot less money changing hands when you develop video games and there are certainly still a lot of video games is still a growing industry in many areas. But having product placement still charging. As much as they do for the league because with those videos games the exception being premium and various other models you’re paying for and you’re buying it and they’re still putting advertisements. This is actually part of the reason I have a big problem with the streaming service Hulu but that’s not that’s a different thing for a different time. The fact that they are still saying hey we want to pay sixty dollars out of pocket for this new product. Oh and by the way we’re going to be advertising to you pretty much constantly. What we’re doing this is a huge problem and I think this is a problem because we have movies as well. They’re paying to see have you taking money from both sides yet. Well the other thing that made me think of specifically regards to racing games and movies is that there was a period and I’m not sure if it’s still the case or not during which advertising on billboards and the like in the movies and reason was added to most costly you know the item was going to be crashed into specifically that the characters in the movie were going to do something heinous to blow up the wrong part of the room knock down onto dentistry and whatever of the world with your product on it it was going to be the most costly type of product placement because it’s spent more time on screen and it was the center of action for that particular scene. Oh absolutely yeah and I would it’s kind of interesting that people were paying more. Companies were paying more to see those their advertisements destroyed but you know to be on screen for longer than half a second versus like maybe ten seconds. Certainly. Well it’s not just a certain length. But being the center of the action right now. Billboard if you were watching intently for the car to come flying through it is a much more engaged audience. Look then he is the billboard shown on the side of the street as the two main characters heart and lungs and so the thing in my brain so quickly I am fairly certain everybody’s on social media has probably heard of it at this point. For those of you who aren’t. Let’s talk about five crazy ways to melt. There’s no diet pill sweeping the country. You will not believe what happens next. That’s true isn’t that stuff that advertising that shows up mostly on social media stuff that has some sort of incredibly intriguing headline that you’re almost certain can be true but you’re a little compelled to find out anyway just in case it was. Sounds like it’s going to take a second you can click into it you can check and get right out of it really quick. But it’s not any of us day after time to not even actually what you thought it was going to be any way at all but ten Ways to Leave Your Lover followed by a story about there is to me it feels like the modern day Simpsons initialism the sort of sweeping claims with no real substance. Well certainly there is a certain sense of newsy crying out from the corner restaurant extra read all about it so and so dead in the bathtub and then it turns out not to be engaged in cages and paper. That same attitude is certainly parades and old ways and to be clear that people are being paid for it. They do receive some very small amount per click that adds up. If you write a very good if you have one but now it seems like a lot of them are starting to get recycled and they are just making the rounds that same one sentence. You won’t believe what happens next is being attached to very many different images. In the hopes of drilling in more people. I see this one famous person doesn’t look like this anymore. You know I can whether they did it they like gain a hundred pounds today. Now out of the job you live in there is like not to get a haircut. There is a little bit shorter than it used to be but a lot of those quit besides oftentimes are either some form of advertisement or if they are self sustaining they don’t actually sell the content they have advertisement all over the place like that used cents or any number of online advertising. Well I know you’re here and reading this thing that’s not really the thing we told you it would be. Why don’t you check out these products that you might be interested in to pop up over a little video in the corner that plays itself. And often times I see these these websites where less than five seconds and you’ll see a little pop over thing that says why don’t you sign up for a newsletter. Yes because that is absolutely what I want to do is receive directly to my e-mail. Yeah well and some extent is a form of native advertise it is in need of to the kinds of stories they get posted to social. Yes and it looks like real content but is in fact some kind of fertile patch to a lot of quick pain use if not directly an advertisement is at the very least being accompanied by a pile of advertisement like River star but more insidious advertisement than anyone else to get away. Insidious and very annoying advertise that we are compelled to stick around through because we have had our whistles wetted by the promise of celebrity or owner and large L’s or whatever else you know I think mine in New Orleans in my news and isn’t really going to change anything. There’s a consumer I think what would change something I’d like to get ahold of the people who are the end product advertisers people who are actually trying to sell a product and hiring a firm that hires a firm that hires a firm that that does this. I’d like to go to them and said you know that when these people are pulling me in flashing this thing up here the that takes me to something that was a lie and your product is on there. First of all and clicking away in a half second if I do notice what’s being advertised there I’m going to be angry with them. These people are are they’re cheating you. They may be tell you we’ve got this many number of hits but they’re not showing you the full story of the experience of the consumer who sees you’re in it which is to piss us off and you should stop giving them money because this is bad for you. For me in these guys in the middle are ripping us both off. I want to say that to the people who are making the product that’s being advertised and just. Don’t use these people because they’re pissing off everybody and putting your name on it. I heard about it and I think more people needed help. Unfortunately I think that the reason he continued to be such a valuable form of advertising is because most people don’t see what they see in the effort of the Toyota girl or whatever. Alongside the rest of the page and they don’t associate Toyota with their frustration. They just saw it and moved that thing made me mad at the sight of that. Well then I guess maybe more consumer awareness of what the incentive is these people are paying them money and that’s why they are pissing you off. Bob quick bait is problematic for the same reason the love dog is a deceptive form of advertising is a form of advertising that does not give our consumer affairs chance to decide do I want to sit here and look at this. Do I want to. Being changed is instead in front of us before we have a chance to do so definitely I think that statement thing about enormously is they want to get the advertising out of the way before we have time to think so as to plan to see it as it were to get in our heads even if we are consciously aware universes will tell you that there are two broad categories of purposes that you’re going for whatever target one of them is to convince people that your product is the best or that certain features or certain cache and the other is to just give people where it is that you exist in my forgot you were around. Just put your name in there. I think part of the downturn. I don’t think we’ve really touched on yet is it makes people incredulous. Well if you have something an article that you felt really interesting and you actually want people to read on social media post it and if it has a sort of something title there’ll be a lot of the world like yeah as far as you know not even going to know you’re going to look at it seems to me like the most effective forms of pay and other deceptive advertising are those that appeal directly to our primal urges. Advertise something to us that we don’t think about. Quit paying for cars is sort of difficult because I’m going to look at a twelve froma While that looks cool. Let me see your stats Kurla. How much does that cost. My payments to Vermont. I don’t want to sound a little bit hard of going to first robot me two weeks from now. It’s much harder to break into that decision to quit me into oh something immediate peals to my animalistic urges. Yes thanks for the food. Ha. Laughing at other people excellent things that will make me feel more confident. I like that. No work required on my behalf and I think the reason it’s so incredibly fun. Why has the prefrontal cortex almost entirely. It moves right past our logic centers and into the need want desire change that old are more animalistic features of our minds are built on activates our noble mean war pleasure pathway and those you want sex you want food you were laughing at other people you like not being self-conscious about various aspects of these things are all very primal drives and by bypassing the thinking part it goes straight to the part of my response is Yeah actually stop and think about it for a second you go away. I think there’s probably not a magic pill that will make me shed pounds my penis bigger will introduce me into beautiful young women who wanted to have sex with me all along. Didn’t know you know if you can make thousands and thousands working well. One form of click I don’t think we’ve touched on yet again is political quick but the sort of see what politician X. did and it’s outrageous or it’s you know it will completely blow your mind it and I suspect we’ll see it as sort of different political seasons go on. Certainly during times recollections and stuff like that will foresee more of it as opposed to the off season as it were. Larry certainly around but it’s I think it’ll become more common as more people kind of figure it out. And that’s yeah that’s less to kind of get to the base instinct but to sort of reaffirm our beliefs or to train countermand or beliefs like if you have a specific politician of some sort or Persian person of distinguishment and this sort of ties into celebrities the tabloid celebrity you can believe what they just sort of thing. Did either reaffirms or was trying to make us laugh. Tries to invoke other feelings other than maybe the primal urges. What I missed a few rounds a lot was ones where there are there were it was like a poll and it pops up and play whichever of the two options I’m going to select from a place of polarization. Do you think Obama was born in Kenya yes or no as it happens it’s no but if I think it’s no I mean if you want to say that they’re asking this question and they’re taking this poll and what if yes when the ball that I’d better make sure I click on it to say no and of course if you think yes you’re going to say well yeah that we’re going to click on this to make sure people find out it’s like such a polarizing question even though it’s so obviously settled that it pretty much makes everybody want to click that I think is a lot of ways click bait is just not so much although I do think this is a big part of it not so much. Surlier resurgence but just trying to get a rise out of you as it were doesn’t quite matter the emotion didn’t arise. Get your blood going about something you know instead of make you think make you act sort of deal to try again and I saw this couple times over various elite it’s do you not make you think about what you’re seeing but what the statement is. So tonight we’re going to be doing things all the different way normally there’s any last words I mean we’re one of those stocks but it hasn’t got him so much material in this episode were actually going to do a little bit of wrap up to talk about the connections between things. So obviously our audience will for you know the deviation from format and of proof. But Mr So basically once the threat what links all these things are deceptive advertising didn’t seem to be exposed to in part are ever Toseland but doesn’t make it seem like it doesn’t it isn’t just deceptive in terms of what it’s trying to tell you it’s trying to deceive you in terms of that it’s advertising at all. Why should we want to advertise. To be up front with us. Why should we want to have a more conscious experience of advertising in some sense are not better off just having experience of the world where I don’t have to think about whether the slender ties you shouldn’t have to go to all this much work to figure it out. But since that is the case that they can do this and have the incentive to do it knowing whether or not what you’re receiving is made for its own sake as content or as we had for the sake of trying to manipulate you into making a financial decision elsewhere that’s having more information that’s being better informed and pretty much committed to the proposition that the better for you. I certainly agree with that I think the better informed on most things if not all things is generally a good idea. The more knowledge that’s out there the better. And I for one would like to see a lot more transparency in our advertising. Just in general but certainly and I would like to see a decrease in deceptive advertising and bigger discussion I guess of how advertising culture and consumer culture works in our country. I’m going to go ahead and answer a question here and say that in a big shot across the bow kind of way I as a consumer have a right to accurate information I have a right to be told the truth about what goes on in the world around me and to make my decisions based and that when companies manipulate my knowledge of the world to fit the end of getting more my money into their part that there is inherently an incorrect use of suction that is violating my rights as an individual in a consumerist culture to make decisions about where my money goes. If you really believe in the project the idea of that for you. Against are open to all players and the best rises to the top because the market force presses on it or that individuals make better choices when they are making choices based on what they themselves want to be chased in the world and should be deeply important to you. We have accurate information about what those choices were making or I cannot be an informed consumer making a decision about whether or not McDonald’s should be rewarded for behavior regarding their meat and if I am deceived as to what the meat packing practices are in the first place I can make accurate decisions about whether or not to support an energy drink company. I don’t know that they’re the ones warning anorexia in the end the difference between free markets and markets is that argument for accurate information as to this verges on fraud. If you were lying to me about your product such practices are about why you’re talking the need to begin with that is that it’s financial and to some extent I think it’s going to damage public opinion over time especially as more people find out about it. It’s going to make social media as a thing a lot more of an incredulous place I think a little maybe a little more cynical. Obviously there are exceptions but for the majority of users if you’re going to be like this is probably an advertisement. I don’t want to have to deal with it and so you’ll have very much the negative outcome of what a lot of these companies are trying to do and I think that works out poorly for everybody and the corporations into understand it just you know that they may have set up a complicated with a vendor client relationships to get the word out about their products. That does not relieve them of the responsibility for what is being said in their name. When being paid directly or indirectly by them who are the increased factors in this and reduced cost of advertising the true the true getting through using these vendors you take on a higher responsibility to manage that network and make sure that the advertising being done on your behalf is being done in the appropriate and open and transparent way. And I for one am going to trace those trends back and call them and I hope more consumers joining us and seems to me like this is a big question we have yet to answer why are we talking. Why do philosophers have some reason to have input on advertising or the social circumstances around advertising it doesn’t seem like it’s immediately a good fit. It seems like policymakers children psychologists the advertisers themselves all sorts of people should be involved in this conversation but I think at least some people are going to ask why philosophers. What do you have to say and this is where I want to actually link back to the idea of education. Advertising is in and out of formal education it is a way of teaching people to think and behave. Also Kony is at its core concerned with understanding that which comes before us teaching people to think we teach them to find truth within the statements that are given to them and we are teaching people how to parse information does come in very deceptive and appealing works you have a choice between advertising teaching you that you should not pay attention that you should just go about your business and we will. What you need in front of you what machines or the choice to think critically and be media literate for yourself and to pass that on to other people. I think philosophers have something to say about this specifically because we are the people who have spent many generations. In a tradition of critical thinking one drink and rational approaches to difficult problems and those are exactly the skills that we need to sell into just conversation and we need to convince people are important again to the way we understand the world so that we are not seen so that we are able to make free choices for ourselves. Well the results of the only discipline that really cuts across all of the areas we needed to talk about something that this subtle limpers pervasive and sort of the air we breathe out of the situation. It involved the theology it involves economics involved in contemporary cultural anthropology of social media. Any other discipline would be able to focus on one path and that philosophy is not so restricted we can go wherever we want and we’re going to need to talk a little bit about all of these things in order to tie it all together. I don’t know I definitely agree that we need to talk about this is for servers actually that’s a big criticism I have of the modern state of foresee particularly academic philosophy is and part of the reason we do this show is a lot of academic philosophy he doesn’t want to or won’t deal with popular culture and the ghost of the time they feel that it is in some way but needs them that they need to talk about bigger questions. But those bigger questions come from somewhere and popular culture and those like ghost effect everything. And I feel that there are a lot of people who are in philosophy that aren’t doing their due diligence that or feel that they are above it. But you know that’s definitely a big concern of mine and I have in the past kind of railed against academic philosophy I don’t come from an academic background but I am I do consider myself at least somewhat well versed if we’re going to as philosophers. Kind of brings up critical thinking and and trying to make this available for more people we can’t sit around and you know consider the big questions we need to deal with a small question is do we need to figure out a way for it to apply. We need to link it relatable we need to present questions that are portable in some ways I mean you know with the big questions too is always a good thing. It always helps you think it kind of allows you to come to new and different conclusions but you also need to deal with the small questions I think that’s a big problem with academic forcefully today what was the need to do with address how people think our culture our minds that’s the information we’re giving sharing and communicating with each other every day is a huge part of how we think has to be addressed. I think you have never considered myself a pragmatist philosophy. I know there are some people of your life how philosophy writer David A was the only part of what should be important to us. I am OK with the esoteric and that we are on the way out there. That doesn’t mean ignoring cultural forces. I’ve heard a lot of flaws of hers get twenty twenty over a link called culture studies which are the kinds of things we talk about to a large extent movies and video games and what the culture is doing that is however rich soil of what is going on in the lives of people and that is the way that we can as Paul’s person directly impact their lives. We don’t have to say that everything in philosophy is more important than I don’t know turning back on the Large Hadron Collider sir. Maybe you’ll turn on the Hadron Collider do some studies on back and talk to us but that doesn’t mean that we should be lord and this attitude that somehow. Only grandest of grand questions are worthy of the time and energy of was a state where no one bothers to count of reporters outside work and that is the truth and I think what what questions are going to be considered more grander more significant is not necessarily what the people most people now think will be I think when the future looks back on now the questions that have been tackled that they’ll realize are more important will be the ones we think are that important now. Certainly and I mean a lot of the stuff we deal with this new media is stuff that hasn’t been around more than one hundred years at most maybe a little longer in the case of film and therefore not to some folks is not as important. And I’m really glad to see some bigger name for us for years most notably the modern force for slow motion Jack going after popular culture and then taking every day because I think going forward it’s going to be real important. We are an information culture. More and more every year and we need to talk and think about that that that information and while I agree that certainly we are living in an era when a lot of new media forms are coming to us these questions are old questions about avoiding deception and understanding the world around us and finding logical connections between things and of the waiting for the implants. These are all questions that we have been dealing with for a long time and not applying what we’ve learned from the past to what we are now going through in the future is exactly what I was Nigerian princes to continue to try and send us money. Well that’s all the time we have for today. Don’t forget subscribing to review on i Tunes follow us on Twitter send us your questions and if you like what we’re doing here. Support a Sunday Triano join us next time after booster programs installed on all the wives computers. I’ve been your host Professor Marable and Bruce river. And yes I found Us magazine article the problems is one where track for more meaningful life. They did mighty quickly with a drone. On you know what.

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